Updated 3:53 pm, Tuesday, February 26, 2013

“No vouchers!” came shouts from the crowd. Patrick came right back with arguments for giving families more school choice.

“We have school choice today — let me finish,” he said, as shouts continued. “If you are rich enough, you can send your child to a private school. And if you are mobile enough, you can move to the suburbs to a great school district.”

Those options don't exist if “you're poor, and you're a hard-working single mom in an inner city,” said Patrick, R-Houston. He said he wants to change that, while contending his plan wouldn't take public money away from public education.

Texas PTA President Karen Slay (not among the shouters) said that giving tax credits to businesses that donate money for private-school scholarships, as proposed by Patrick, “is public money.”

“If there's something wrong with the public schools, let's fix them,” rather than resorting to such tactics, she said. The PTA crowd, in fact, became enthusiastic when Patrick touted more money for public education. He also promoted more public school choices.

The Legislature doesn't seem to have a much warmer welcome than the PTA crowd for Patrick's tax-credit proposal, which he trumpeted before Christmas with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Two months later, its details are yet to be fleshed out.

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, doesn't think the Senate has a taste for vouchers. Noting that a two-thirds vote of the 31-member chamber is needed to bring up a bill for discussion, she said, “I believe there are 11 votes to block.”

In the HousePublic Education Committee Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, said he and Patrick have discussed the issue. “I think it would be very difficult to find the votes in committee or on the (full House) floor for any significant voucher program,” Aycock said. “I don't know that I'd say its dead. I'd say it's in a difficult situation.”

Besides objecting to diverting state support to private schools, some critics suggest it could be problematic to give franchise tax credits for one type of donation and not others. Some raise concerns about how scholarship recipients would be chosen.

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Tax expert Billy Hamilton, a consultant whose clients include Raise Your Hand Texas, an education advocacy group that opposes vouchers and is fueled by top business leaders, said the proposal isn't good tax policy.

“It's just another thing that says you can get a special tax break if you do this. If you don't feel like doing this, you can't get a tax break, and ultimately your taxes will be higher because other businesses do it,” Hamilton said.

Backers of the idea, including Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, say the scholarships would improve education by spurring competition and give opportunities to those in “failed” public schools.

“Obviously it has a difficult path,” Hammond said. “Any kind of dramatic change like this is going to be hard. It might be a two-session deal.”

Patrick said the tax-credit proposal is just one among numerous ideas aimed at “transforming education.” He said his bills to change graduation requirements and to expand the number of charter schools “will impact every student in public schools.”

“The business tax credit is designed for a handful of students and parents who feel they have no other options to find the school that best suits them,” Patrick said after last week's rally. “At the end of the day, if you had a program that gave an opportunity to five (thousand), six (thousand), seven thousand students in the business tax credit program, out of 5.7 million – I just don't know what all the fuss is about.”